The Domino Pattern

TWENTY-ONE

Precisely two hours after being dismissed from Minnario’s compartment, I was back.

“Right on time,” Kennrick said approvingly as I came up to the narrow gap he’d again opened in the divider wall. “Excellent. All that Westali training, no doubt. You have your friend’s rations?”

“Right here,” I said, peering through the gap as I held up the package for him to see. He was back to his earlier cross-legged posture on the bed, this time with his reader propped up on the pillow beside him.

Bayta, in contrast, was now lying on her back on the floor with her feet toward me, the blanket covering her from neck to ankles, her head resting on the pillow. Her face was under control, but I could see the low-level nervousness beneath it. I also noted that there were now three loops of wire around her neck instead of two.

When Bayta had said Kennrick was stringing new lengths of wire around the room, she’d definitely been understating the case. The place was full of the damn stuff, most of it crisscrossing the room at shin height. Half a dozen of the wires ran over Bayta’s torso and legs, while the rest were arranged in front of the door and divider. Even if none of them were actually attached to Bayta’s neck loops, making a mad dash across the room to wring Kennrick’s neck was now out of the question.

“You like the new arrangement?” Kennrick asked.

“Looks like the hobby room of a tall-ship model maker,” I said. “Listen, the gap here is too small to fit the package through. Can you open it up a bit?”

“I could,” he said consideringly. “But it would be a bit tricky for her to eat with a sliced throat, don’t you think?”

I grimaced. “How about I open the package and send them through individually?”

“How about you do that,” he agreed. “Only be careful where they land.”

Tearing open the package, I started dropping the bars through the gap, making sure to miss all the wires. “I hope you’re not going to try to tell me all of those are connected to Bayta.”

“Some of them might be,” he said. “Others might be holding back other lines, so that her throat only remains intact if you leave them alone. Just in case you were thinking about sending in some twitters with instructions to cut everything in sight.”

“I wasn’t,” I assured him. “Look, Kennrick—”

“Hey, you have to see this,” he interrupted, reaching down to the bed beside him and picking up a flat piece of dull gray metal. “Especially since you asked about it earlier. This is part of the stiffening frame for my larger carrybag. Watch.”

Picking up his multitool, he used the needle-nosed pliers to get a grip on the corner of the plate. He pulled carefully to the side; and, to my amazement, a thin wire began to peel away from the metal. “Isn’t that cool?” he asked, continuing to pull wire from the plate until he’d reached the full extension of his arm. “It’s called knitted-metal something-or-other. The stuff’s perfectly solid and perfectly innocent until you need to garrote someone.” He smiled. “I’ll bet Mr. Hardin didn’t give you toys like this.”

“I wouldn’t have taken them if he had,” I said. “Kennrick, we may have some trouble here. Another side has joined the game.”

“What, Esantra Worrbin’s making threatening noises again on behalf of the Assembly?” he asked contemptuously.

“This has nothing to do with the passengers,” I said. “It has to do with the Spiders.”

“The Spiders are making threatening noises?”

“I’m not joking,” I growled. “There’s a new class of Spider that’s just come on line. They’re called defenders, and they’re like nothing you’ve ever seen before.”

“I’ll be sure to watch out for them,” Kennrick promised solemnly. “Along with the ogres and hobgoblins that have also been hiding aboard since we left Homshil. Really, Compton. I was hoping for something a little more imaginative.”

“Two of them came aboard an hour ago from a tender that’s pulled up behind us,” I went on doggedly. “Up to now, my experience with defenders has mostly consisted of being slammed up against a wall by one of them. They’re strong, they’re smart, they’re aggressive, and they’re not going to let you walk off this train. Not alive.”

I shifted my eyes to Bayta. “And unlike me, they don’t particularly care whether you die alone or with company.”

For a long moment Kennrick studied my face. “Okay, I’ll play along,” he said. “Let’s assume I’m sufficiently scared. What do you suggest I do next?”

“I suggest we get the hell off this train,” I said. “I suggest you and Bayta and I get aboard that tender, turn it around, and head back toward Homshil.”

“All three of us, you say?” Kennrick asked. “Interesting.”

“You and I can’t operate the tender,” I explained. “Bayta can. But you’ll need me as a hostage to guarantee her cooperation.”

“As well as guaranteeing a much more exciting ride, I assume?”

“You can tie me up for the whole trip if you want,” I said. “The point is that we have to get you off this train while we still can.”

“I’ll take it under advisement,” Kennrick said. “You about done with those?”

I flipped through the last of the ration bars. “Yes.”

“And the passengers are out of all three compartment cars?” he asked. “Except for you, of course.”

“Yes, everyone’s out.”

“Good.” Unfolding his legs, Kennrick got up from the bed. “See, here’s what I’m more concerned about at the moment than imaginary attack Spiders: the question of what you’re going to do when I close down that divider.”

“I leave the car like you told me to,” I said, frowning. “Why?”

“Don’t be naive, Compton,” he said, picking his way carefully between the wires as he walked toward me. “And don’t assume I am, either.”

“You can unfasten the wire from the door and watch me go,” I suggested.

“You mean open the door and discover to my chagrin that you’re standing right outside ready to punch me in the throat?” he countered. “No, thanks.”

He came to a stop just out of arm’s reach. “So let me explain how this is going to work.” He held up a small object. “This is the electric motor from my shaver,” he said. “I’m going to use it to rig up a device that’ll automatically strangle Bayta after a preprogrammed number of seconds or minutes.”

I felt my stomach tighten. “You don’t need to do that,” I said.

“Ah, but I do,” he countered. “You see, once you’ve gone I’m going to go through all three cars with the infrared sensor in my reader, and it’s a very good sensor. If I get even a hint that you or someone else is hiding in one of the compartments, I’ll come straight back here and make sure Ms. Bayta regrets your stupidity.”

“You kill her and you’ll have lost your hostage,” I warned.

“Oh, I wouldn’t kill her,” he assured me. “Not right away. I’d probably start by slicing off the end of a finger or two. I’m assuming she’s strong enough not to succumb to shock, but of course I don’t know that for sure.”

I took a deep breath. “Anything else?”

“Two things.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out his ticket, and I saw it was sliced about halfway through. “Point one: note the tear,” he went on. “If you or anyone else tries to jump me while I’m outside my compartment, all I have to do is tear it the rest of the way through and it becomes useless as a key. You might be able to put it back together, but not before the automatic strangler kicks in.”

“You don’t have to belabor the point, Kennrick,” I said. “I recognize that you’ve thought this whole thing through very carefully.”

“Good,” he said. “Point two …”

Without warning he turned halfway around, bringing the kwi on his right hand to bear on Bayta. His thumb pressed the switch, and Bayta’s eyes rolled up and closed as her body went limp.

Before I could react, Kennrick had swung back to face me. “Point two is I don’t want her giving you a running commentary on what I’m doing,” he said conversationally. “Good-bye, Compton.”

I lifted my gaze from Bayta to Kennrick’s face. “Goodbye, Kennrick,” I said. “Don’t forget what I said about the defenders.”

He was still smiling as he touched the control on the wall, closing the divider in front of me.

Sarge was waiting just inside the rear door of the last compartment car. “She is unconscious,” he said in his flat Spider voice. “Why is she unconscious?”

So much for my hope that Bayta had been faking. But then, she could hardly have done anything else. There were ways of telling if someone was truly unconscious. “Because she still needs to maintain the illusion that the kwi works like a normal weapon,” I told him. “Come on—we need to get out of here.”

Reluctantly, I thought, he backed into the vestibule. “What now?” he asked as I followed him in.

“The groundwork’s been laid,” I told him. “Time to go to work.”

We stepped into the first coach car. Many of the displaced passengers had opted to settle down there, I saw, instead of continuing on to coach cars farther back. No doubt they were hoping their proximity to the center of the action would give them a better chance of finding out what was going on.

They were going to be disappointed. “We need a base of operations,” I told the defender. “Tell the conductors I need everyone cleared out of this car.”

Considering the wealth and power of the travelers I was pushing around, they took the news remarkably well. Maybe the rumor mill had given a sufficiently dark cast to the situation to keep their indignation in check. Or maybe it was the look in my eyes. Either way, with a maximum of cooperation and a minimum of griping, they were soon gone. “What now?” Sarge asked when we were alone.

I checked my watch. Twenty minutes until we hit the cross-hatch section, if Sarge’s earlier estimate had been correct. “Is your partner ready to move the tender alongside us?” I asked.

“He is,” Sarge confirmed. “You still wish it to parallel the center compartment car?”

“No, we’d better hold it back here for now,” I said. “I doubt Kennrick’s sensors are good enough to spot movement or heat all the way through the compartments on that side of the train, but I don’t want to risk it. Make sure the conductors know to opaque all the windows on that side of the train before the tender starts moving.”

“It will be done,” Sarge said. “What after that?”

“There’s one more preliminary job you’ll need to do,” I told him. “After that, we’ll just have to wait until Bayta’s awake again so that we’ll have a real-time tap into what Kennrick’s doing.”

“What is this preliminary job you wish me to do?”

Spiders, even defenders, didn’t exhibit a whole lot of body language. Even so, as I told him what I wanted, I had no difficulty sensing his stunned outrage. “No,” he said when I’d finished, his voice even flatter than usual. “Impossible.”

“Why?” I countered. “Because it’s against the rules? Trust me—we’re going to be breaking a lot of rules before this is over.”

“Which other rules?”

“Rules that you’re going to break so that Bayta lives and Kennrick doesn’t escape with information on how to kill people aboard Quadrails,” I said bluntly. “Are we all on the same page? Or will I have to go back to the Chahwyn and tell them that one of their own died because you wouldn’t cooperate with me?”

“But this is—” Abruptly, he stiffened. “Frank?” he said in Bayta’s voice.

“Bayta?” I said, glancing at my watch. It had been only forty minutes since Kennrick had zapped her, though a low-level kwi shot was normally good for at least an hour. Her unique mix of Human and Chahwyn physiologies coming into play again, no doubt. “Are you all—?”

“Something’s wrong,” she interrupted urgently. “The oxygen repressurization tank is gone.”

I frowned at Sarge. “What do you mean, it’s gone? Gone where?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “He must have moved it while I was unconscious.”

And then, suddenly, I understood. “Damn it,” I muttered, heading for the forward vestibule and the compartment cars beyond it. “Come on,” I called to Sarge over my shoulder.

The rearmost compartment car was deserted. Moving as quietly as I could, I headed along the corridor to the front. Bracing myself, I touched the control to open the door to the vestibule.

Nothing happened.

I tried twice more, but it was just going through the motions. “He’s got us, Bayta,” I said. “Damn him. Damn me, too, for not catching on sooner.”

“He vented the tank into the vestibule?” Bayta asked.

“You got it,” I said bitterly. Thereby increasing the air pressure in the vestibule’s confined space, thereby engaging the automatic locks on both the vestibule’s doors. Now, the only way to get through into Kennrick’s car would be to drill, spike, or otherwise batter our way through.

Bayta and I had used the exact same trick against the Modhri not two months ago, and yet I’d never seen this coming. I must be slipping. “At least now we know why he’s got audio sensors laid out in the corridor,” I said, forcing back both the anger and the self-reproach. Now was not the time. “He knows we can’t batter our way through the vestibule without making a lot of noise.”

“That just means we’ll have to come up with a different plan,” Bayta said calmly. Or maybe the calm was just an artifact of Sarge’s transmission. “You have any ideas?”

I stared at the vestibule door, thinking hard. All right. We couldn’t get through without making a lot of noise. The noise would trigger the sensors, which would trigger the alarm, which would alert Kennrick to start lopping off Bayta’s fingers.

But only if Kennrick was able to hear the alarm …

“Fine,” I said slowly. “He wants to play cute? We can play cute, too. Here’s the plan …”

Sarge wasn’t thrilled by the plan, for at least three separate rule-breaking reasons. Bayta didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic, either, for a whole other set of reasons.

But neither of them could think of anything better. In the end, I got my way.

Our preparations took another hour. We waited another hour after that, just to give Kennrick time to settle down comfortably in the center of his new fortress of solitude.

I spent most of that final hour staring at the walls, running the plan over and over in my brain, trying to think of any alternative actions Kennrick might take that I wouldn’t be ready for.

There were, unfortunately, any number of things he might do, any one of which would wreck everything. But I knew the man now, hopefully well enough that I could anticipate his likely responses.

We would find out soon enough if I was right.

Finally, the hour was up. “He’s stretched out on the bed reading,” Sarge relayed Bayta’s words and voice as he and I stood at the rear of the last compartment car. “He looks calm and very much at home.”

“Good,” I said. “Let me know right away when that changes.”

“I will,” she said.

I touched Sarge’s leg. “Wait here,” I told him, and passed through the vestibule into the first coach car, the one I’d made into my operations base.

Krel Vevri and Osantra Qiddicoj were waiting there for me, both of them standing straight and tall, Qiddicoj’s long Filly face still a little pale from his earlier brush with death. “Well?” Vevri asked as I emerged from the vestibule.

Or rather, the Modhri within him said it. “It’s time,” I confirmed, looking back and forth between the flat eyes and sagging faces.

And it occurred to me, not for the first time, that this was the riskiest part of my plan. The Modhri had promised to cooperate, but if he decided he could do better by switching sides, this whole thing would collapse into disaster and death without warning.

The two aliens nodded in unison. “Let us get on with it,” Vevri said.

I shook away the unpleasant thoughts. I couldn’t make this work without the Modhri playing spotter for me, and that was that. I would just have to trust him, and watch my back. “Yes, let’s,” I agreed. “The Spider will take the Krel Vevri walker through the airlock into the tender. He’ll ride him up to the first compartment car—”

“You’ve already explained the plan,” the Modhri reminded me.

I grimaced. He was right, I had. Twice. “Just remember that once you’re in the compartment you’ll need to stay perfectly quiet if and when Kennrick passes by,” I said. “If he hears you—”

“Bayta will die,” Vevri interrupted again. “I understand. Again: let us get on with it.”

“Right.” I nodded to the defender. “Go.”

The defender didn’t speak as he led the way to the car’s door, but I was pretty sure I could detect some residual reluctance in his body language. Letting a passenger actually go aboard one of their tenders was bad enough. Letting a passenger aboard who was also a Modhran walker was unthinkable. Distantly, I wondered what kind of report he and Sarge would be sending back after this was all over.

They reached the car’s outer door and it irised open, revealing the extendable airlock leading to the tender. Vevri and the defender went inside, and the car door closed behind them. “You ready?” I asked Qiddicoj.

“Yes,” he said. “Don’t worry, Compton. I’ve agreed to help you, and will hold to that promise.”

“That makes me feel so much better,” I said, trying not to be too sarcastic. “Come on.”

Sarge was waiting for us in the rear compartment car by the vestibule door Kennrick had sealed. “Anything?” I asked as Qiddicoj and I came up to him.

“No,” he said.

I nodded. “Let me know when your buddy’s in position.”

He didn’t bother to answer. But then, I’d already gone over this part of the plan twice, too.

The minutes ticked by. I found myself staring at the vestibule door, tracing its edge with my eyes, trying to estimate the strength of the metal. Sarge had assured me that even with the air-pressure seal locked down tight he would have no trouble opening the thing. If he was right, we had a chance.

If he was wrong …

“My Krel Vevri Eye has entered the first compartment car,” Qiddicoj murmured suddenly. “He’s found the proper compartment and is unlocking the door.”

The compartment at the very front of the train, the one right beside that car’s emergency oxygen repressurization tank. I’d had to talk long and earnestly to the compartment’s proper occupant to get him to loan me that key. “Is he in yet?”

“Yes,” the Modhri confirmed. “He’s sealed the door behind him.”

I nodded and turned to Sarge. “Your partner ready?”

“He is in place,” Sarge said.

“Tell him to go, and then connect me to Bayta,” I ordered. “Bayta?”

“I’m here, Frank,” her voice came from Sarge’s metallic sphere. “Nothing new is happening here.”

“It’s about to,” I assured her. “Keep the relay open.”

“All right.”

I listened intently, but for the first thirty seconds nothing happened. “What’s happening?” I demanded at last.

“I can hear scraping,” Bayta reported, her voice tight. “Coming from the edge of the display window, I think. I can’t tell for sure—Mr. Kennrick has it opaqued.”

“Has he noticed the sound?”

“Yes, he’s looking around,” Bayta said. “He doesn’t look happy—wait; he’s figured it out. He’s clearing the window—”

“What the hell?” Sarge gasped, his voice abruptly switching to Kennrick’s. “What the bloody—get the hell off my window. You—Bayta—tell it to get off my window.”

“I can’t,” Bayta said aloud. “He’s a defender—Mr. Compton told you about them. He won’t listen to me.”

“Tell him to get off,” Kennrick snarled again. “Or by God, I swear—”

“He has a loop of wire twisted around her wrist,” Sarge reported.

Beside me, the Modhri hissed anger. “Coward,” he said contemptuously.

“Shall I order him to leave?” Sarge asked.

I squeezed my hand into a fist, emotion and logic doing a vicious tug-of-war with my soul. If this was a bluff, and I blinked, our best opportunity to nail Kennrick would be gone.

But if it wasn’t a bluff, Bayta was about to lose a hand.

“Compton?” Sarge asked again.

Abruptly, the decision was taken from me. “No,” Bayta’s voice came firmly from Sarge’s metal sphere. “Keep going. It’s our only chance.”

“Compton?” Kennrick’s voice demanded. “Compton? Call him off, damn you. You hear me?”

“Keep going,” Bayta said again.

“Compton? Compton?”

“He can’t do anything,” Bayta told him, her voice frightened and pleading. “Please—he can’t do any—”

Abruptly, her voice went silent. “Bayta!” I barked.

“She’s unhurt,” Sarge said. “He has shot her with the kwi.”

I braced myself. “What about her hand?”

“Also unhurt,” Sarge assured me. “The Human has opaqued the window again.”

“And?” I demanded.

“A moment.”

I rubbed a layer of sweat off my forehead, willing my heartbeat to slow down as the defender hanging on to the outside of the car did whatever changes were necessary to his sensor suite to let him see through an opaqued display window. “The Human has moved to the door and is working with some of the wires connected there,” Sarge reported.

“Which ones?”

“They appear to be the ones connected to Bayta’s neck,” Sarge said.

“It’s working,” the Modhri said.

“So far,” I agreed cautiously. It was still way too early for us to start congratulating ourselves. “What’s he doing now?”

“He has attached his reader to the motor fastened near the door,” Sarge said. “The wire from the motor reaches across the compartment to loop around Bayta’s neck.”

The automatic strangler Kennrick had warned me about. Our quarry was about to make a sortie out of his fortress.

“He is leaving the compartment,” Sarge said. “The door is closing …I can see no more.”

I took a deep breath. It was working. It was actually working. “Tell your partner to stop scraping,” I instructed Sarge. “Modhri, let me know the minute you hear movement outside Vevri’s compartment.”

“I will,” the Modhri promised, a note of what sounded like genuine awe in his voice. “You amaze me, Compton. How did you know he would behave in precisely this manner?”

“Because I have a good idea how people like that think,” I said. That, plus the fact that Kennrick had damn few options right now. If the Spider managed to break the seal around his window, his air would go rushing out into the near-vacuum of the Tube. Without keys to any of the other compartments, there was nowhere else he could relocate to, even if he was willing to leave his carefully laid defenses. Trying to camp out in the corridor wouldn’t be any better.

Which left him only one real option: buy himself some time, and hope he could figure out how to get the Spider off his window. Time, in this particular case, being oxygen.

And since he’d already used the tank in his own car to block the vestibule, he was going to have to go to the next car forward and steal theirs.

“You understand him, indeed,” the Modhri murmured. “My congratulations.”

“Let’s save the celebration until he actually gets to the tank,” I warned, still refusing to allow my hopes to get too high. “He could still decide to hunker down in the corridor while he tries to think up a new—”

“There!” the Modhri cut me off. “He’s outside the forward car stateroom, and has begun to unfasten the oxygen tank.”

And with Kennrick a car and a half away from all his audio sensors and alarms, it was time to go. “Your turn,” I said, gesturing Sarge toward the vestibule door.

The words were barely out of my mouth when two of the defender’s legs lanced forward, their tips spearing hard into the edge of the door. Before my ears could recover from the sound he hit the door again, with an even harder double blow than before.

And then, through the ringing in my ears, I heard the angry hiss of escaping air. The Spider had dented the door just enough to break the seal, releasing the pressure that had kept it locked.

I stepped forward and hit the release. The door opened halfway, then faltered as the deformed metal hung up on its rollers. I grabbed the edge, and with the defender joining my effort we shoved it the rest of the way open. I crossed the vestibule, stepping over the spent oxygen cylinder Kennrick had put there earlier, and touched the control at the other end.

The door opened into a deserted corridor. I stepped inside the car and headed forward at a fast jog. “How’s he doing?” I asked over my shoulder.

“The sounds of disassembly have just finished,” the Modhri reported. “The sounds now are those of one hefting a large object …he’s starting back along the corridor.”

Which meant our grace period was nearly at an end. “Thanks,” I said, picking up my pace. “Get back into the vestibule and make sure the door closes behind you.”

I reached Minnario’s compartment door, keyed it open, and slipped inside. Sarge was right behind me.

It wasn’t until the door slid shut again that I discovered that Qiddicoj had followed us in. “I told you to go back,” I snapped.

“You may need me,” he said.

I cursed under my breath. But it was too late for him to go back now. “Just stay quiet and out of my way,” I growled.

I crossed the room to where the divider sealed against the wall. Kennrick had undoubtedly locked it from his side after my last visit, and in theory I couldn’t unlock it from here.

But Bayta and I had run into this problem once before, and we’d come up with an answer to it. “Ready,” I said, nodding to Sarge. “Have the conductors cut power now.”

For three heartbeats nothing happened. Then, the compartment around us went dark. I counted out two more heartbeats, and the light came back on.

And with that, the divider returned to its default position of being unlocked.

“The Human’s footsteps have faded from my other Eye’s hearing,” the Modhri murmured. “Do we open the divider?”

“Not yet,” I said, kneeling on the curve couch and pressing my ear against the divider. “We have to wait until Kennrick gets back and disarms the automatic strangler setup. Defender, better have your partner start his scratching again.” I frowned as a sudden thought struck me. “He can’t actually dig all the way through the seal, can he?”

“No,” Sarge said. But I could hear the disapproval in his voice. Letting passengers aboard tenders was broken rule number one; even pretending to do damage to one of their own Quadrails was broken rule number two. In his place, I decided, I would probably be unhappy, too.

For almost two minutes nothing happened. I was starting to wonder if Kennrick had decided to make a camp out in the corridor after all when I half heard, half felt a faint thud. There was a short pause, another thud—

“He has returned,” Sarge confirmed as he picked up the commentary from the defender hanging outside the opaqued window. “He carries the oxygen tank with him.”

I started to breathe again. It was nearly over. Kennrick had jumped perfectly through every hoop I’d set in front of him. All he had to do now was disarm the automatic strangler, reconnect the door trip wires to guard against intrusion from that direction, and then take the oxygen tank to the bed and start rigging it for his use if and when the defender made it though his window seal. I pressed my ear a little harder against the divider, even though I knew I’d never pick up the subtle sound or vibration of Kennrick heaving the oxygen tank onto the bed.

Which meant I was completely unprepared for the sudden thump that bounced against the divider right beside my ear. “What was that?” I whispered urgently. “Defender? Where the hell—?”

“He has seated himself on the curve couch,” Sarge reported. “He is working on the pressurization tank’s valve.”

I felt the blood freeze in my veins. Kennrick wasn’t supposed to be on the curve couch. He was supposed to be on the bed, like he’d been every other time I’d come in here. He was supposed to be concentrating so hard on his new oxygen tank and the Spider hanging outside his window that he wouldn’t notice the divider open the crucial few centimeters I needed.

But he wasn’t on the bed. He was on the curve couch, which would start retracting into the divider the instant I touched the control. There was no way in hell he could possibly miss that.

The Modhri must have sensed my sudden turmoil. “What is it?” he murmured.

“I need to open the divider without him noticing,” I said grimly. “And I need him in front of the gap where I can see him, not way off to the side the way he is now.”

“I see,” the Modhri said calmly. “Do you still have the bypass mimic you took from Logra Emikai?”

“Uh …” I floundered, caught off balance by the sudden change in subject. “Yes, I’ve got it. Why?”

“Give it to me,” the Modhri said, holding out his hand.

I stared at him. What in the world was he up to? “It doesn’t work on Spider locks,” I said.

“I don’t need it to,” the Modhri said, his hand still outstretched. “You wish the Human Kennrick in front of the opening. I will make that happen.”

Trusting the Modhri, the words whispered through my mind. But time was running out, and I didn’t have anything better to suggest. Digging the flat gray box out of my pocket, I handed it over.

“Thank you,” the Modhri said, fingering it thoughtfully. “Stay quiet, and stand well clear.” He looked at the defender. “You, too,” he added.

The defender seemed to think it over. Then, with obvious reluctance, he stepped all the way back to the compartment door. I took advantage of the moment to climb off the curve couch and press myself against its end, a meter from the wall where the divider would be opening.

The Modhri waited until we were set, then stepped over to the divider control. “Stand ready,” he told me, and touched the control.

The divider started sliding open. It had barely cleared the wall when I heard an explosive curse from the other side of the widening gap. “What the—? Compton? Compton, damn you—”

“Not Compton,” the Modhri called hastily through to him. “I am Osantra Qiddicoj. I have come to make you a bargain.”

“What the—how did you get in there?” Kennrick snarled, and I could hear the subtle shift in the sound of his voice as he moved away from the collapsing curve couch.

“With this,” the Modhri said, poking the corner of the bypass mimic through the still-opening divider. I tensed, but almost before I could start to wonder if he’d forgotten about Bayta he touched the control again, stopping the divider at just the right position. “It’s a duplicate of the locksmith’s bypass mimic Compton took from Logra Emikai. I offer it to you as part of a—”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Kennrick demanded. “The damn thing doesn’t work on Spider locks, Compton said”

“Compton was wrong,” the Modhri countered, wiggling the mimic as if to emphasize his words. “I bought this spare from Logra Emikai, who showed me its secret. I offer it to you now in exchange for your secret of bringing death aboard the Quadrail.”

Abruptly, he snatched the mimic out of the gap, and I caught a glimpse of Kennrick’s fingertips as he grabbed for the device. “Give it here,” Kennrick snarled.

“Not until you swear to the bargain,” the Modhri said firmly. “With this you can move to a different room, where the Spider attacking you cannot—”

And right in the middle of a sentence, he collapsed abruptly into a heap on the floor, the mimic clattering against the deck as it fell from suddenly nerveless fingers.

“Nice try, Compton,” Kennrick called from the other side of the divider. “You really think I’m that stupid?”

I pressed harder against the divider, gesturing to Sarge to likewise keep silent and motionless. Kennrick had obviously used the kwi on Qiddicoj …but with Bayta still unconscious, I knew for a fact the kwi hadn’t worked. Qiddicoj was faking, lying supposedly unconscious with the perfect bait lying millimeters from his hand.

“I know you’re in there, Compton,” Kennrick bit out, raising his voice over the scraping sound of the defender outside his window. “Come out right now, or I’m going to start cutting off your girlfriend’s fingers.”

I clenched my teeth, my eyes riveted on the mimic. Because it was the perfect bait, and Kennrick had to know that. If he could get it to work on Spider locks, then every compartment in these two cars would be open to him. He could move himself and his hostage back and forth between rooms, resetting his traps and strangle lines, keeping himself clear of whatever the defenders tried to do to pin him down or root him out.

“You hear me, Compton?” Kennrick called again. “Show yourself. Now.”

Only the Modhri had forgotten one crucial detail. The rigged vestibule had been sealed by means of a purely mechanical pressure lock, with nothing that a key or bypass mimic could do anything about. If Kennrick paused long enough to wonder how Qiddicoj had gotten through that, this whole house of cards would collapse.

“Compton?” Kennrick called. The light coming through the gap shifted subtly, and I had the sense that he was now pressing his eye against the opening, trying to see as much of the room as he could. “Compton? Last chance before I start cutting her.”

I took a careful breath. He was going for it, I realized with cautiously rekindled hope. He was still calling for me, but he was no longer sure I was really here. Either he hadn’t thought about the vestibule question, or he didn’t realize the pressure lock couldn’t be triggered remotely, or he was desperate enough to take the risk.

I gathered my feet under me, ready to push off the partially collapsed curve couch the minute he made his move. I would have only one shot at this …

And then, without warning, Kennrick’s left hand darted through the gap and grabbed the mimic.

I shoved off the couch toward him, knowing even as I did so I would be too late.

But as Kennrick had mistakenly written the Modhri out of his calculations, so had I. Even as Kennrick’s fingers closed around the mimic, Qiddicoj’s limp hand came suddenly to life, darting up to lock itself around Kennrick’s wrist.

Kennrick gave a startled curse, twisting his arm against Qiddicoj’s thumb to try to break the grip. Qiddicoj held on gamely, but Kennrick was stronger and had better leverage, and half a second later he was free.

But a half second was all I needed. I reached them as Kennrick started to pull the mimic back through the gap, locking my own fingers around the man’s wrist with all the strength adrenaline-flooded muscles could manage.

Kennrick yelped in pain as I yanked his arm hard toward me, slamming his shoulder against the edge of the divider, his face contorted with rage as he glared through the gap at me. “I knew it,” he spat. “Clever, Compton. Now go to hell!” Lifting his right arm over his head, he pointed the kwi at me and jammed his thumb against the trigger.

“Sorry, Kennrick,” I gritted. “Afraid you’re out of bullets.”

His face twisted even more viciously as he thumbed the kwi again. “So now what?” he retorted as he lowered his arm. “You still can’t come in here without killing her. What are you going to do, stand there holding my wrist all the way to Venidra Carvo?”

“No,” I said as I reached with my left hand around to the small of my back. The worst rule-breaking of all, I reflected, a request which Sarge had nearly vetoed even with both Bayta and me pleading my case. “I’m going to dispense justice.”

And with that, I brought my Beretta around to the front, the weapon that had been in a lockbox beneath the train until I’d talked Sarge into sending his partner to retrieve it. Pressing it against Kennrick’s side beneath the arm I was holding, I pulled the trigger.

The blast was deafening in the enclosed space. For a second Kennrick just stared at me, his eyes wide and disbelieving. Then his legs collapsed, and he fell to the floor, landing with his torso twisted awkwardly against the wall as I continued to grip his wrist.

“It is over?” Sarge asked.

I took a deep breath and let go of Kennrick’s arm. It dropped limply to his side, the impact sending a small ripple through the blood already spreading through the carpet. Find the murderer, Givvrac had appealed to me with his last breath. And kill him.

Sometimes people did indeed get what they wished for.

“Yes, it’s over,” I told Sarge quietly, gazing at the eyes now staring their residual astonishment at the compartment’s ceiling. “Tell the mites to get busy—I want them through the ceiling as soon as possible, and never mind the mess. And you can tell the other defender he can come back inside.”

I leaned forward and peered through the gap. Bayta was lying on the floor, her breathing slow and even, the loops of now useless strangling wire glittering around her neck. As I gazed at her, the scraping from the window stopped, replaced by a sort of mice-in-the-wall sound as the mites set to work on the ceiling.

Beneath my feet, I felt Qiddicoj stir. “May I?” the Modhri asked.

“Sorry,” I apologized, stepping clear and offering my hand.

He ignored it, getting to his feet without assistance. “A straightforward yet effective plan,” he commented, peering through the gap at Kennrick’s body. “My congratulations.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Much as I hate to say this, I owe you.”

“You know the repayment I desire,” he said, his voice hardening as he gazed into my eyes. “The method of death used by the Human Kennrick must never be allowed to become public.”

“It won’t,” I promised. “And now that we know how it was done, we should be able to tweak the Spiders’ sensors to keep it from happening again.”

“Good.” Qiddicoj’s long Filly face twitched in a wry smile. “After all, I hope someday to rule the galaxy. I can’t achieve that goal if the Quadrail system is destroyed.”

I felt my stomach tighten. “No, of course not,” I agreed. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t wish you luck with that.”

He inclined his head to me. “Then with your permission I’ll return to my fellow passengers.” He smiled again. “Osantra Qiddicoj will be chagrined to discover that he slept through these momentous events.”

“As will Krel Vevri, no doubt,” I agreed. “I presume he’s on his way back, too?”

“Yes,” Qiddicoj confirmed. “Farewell, Compton. I will most likely not speak to you again.”

“Likewise,” I said.

I watched as he crossed to the door and disappeared out into the corridor. “There will be repercussions from this,” Sarge warned.

“There are repercussions from every action,” I said. With the excitement over, I was suddenly very tired. “That’s the way of things.”

Sarge seemed to digest that. “I will take your weapon now.”

I’d almost forgotten the Beretta still hanging loosely in my grip. “Yes, of course,” I said, putting on the safety and handing it over. “Back to the lockbox, I presume?”

“Immediately,” he said, taking the weapon with one leg and folding it up beneath his metal sphere. Tapping his way to the door, he left the compartment.

I turned again to the opening. Yes, there would be repercussions. Possibly very serious ones.

But we would deal with them as they arose. Right now, all I cared about was that Bayta was alive.

With one last look at Kennrick’s frozen eyes, I settled down to listen to the mites working overhead, and to watch Bayta sleep.